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Tech

Posts Tagged ‘technology’

TechRepublic posted “10 ways techs can make extra cash” a while back. There are some good ideas there, and even gives you sites that cater to specific categories. Some of these can even help drive people to their own business.

Some of you took exception to my contention in “Microsoft Dropping the Ball?” that smartphones are losing ground in the cell phone arena because of a lack of innovation by MS. In particular, I posited the question, “What have you (MS) done for me lately?”

As they say, though, YMMV. In the LifeHacker article “Are Standard Cellphones Too Complicated?” that contains a pointer to the above article, you see people bemoaning too many features, but some seem to have a feature set they consider essential that does not involve simply sending/receiving voice calls.

I guess “complicated” is in the eye of the beholder. If it is viewed as a “needed” feature, then not having it is a negative.

I’m going to stir the pot even a little more, though.

I’m honestly not so sure that the future is with cell phone technology, though. Some experts have implied that satellite technology is better and coming down in price. Satellite phones don’t require a cell tower and can be used in the remotest areas. Then, there are some who believe that VOIP will continue to become ubiquitous and of better quality.

I was reading a job description last week. They wanted someone who was “experienced in Web 3.0”. Say what? Must be a typo. So, imagine my surprise when I see the same ad a few days later in another place. Not sure how you can be “experienced” in something that mostly only exists on paper right now. If you thought “Web 2.0” was nebulous, try explaining “Web 3.0”!

Web 2.0 was a buzzword created by Dale Dougherty of O’Reilly Media.1 However, the father of the World Wide Web (WWW), Tim Berners-Lee disputes that the term is all hype. He maintains that it is nothing more than what the WWW was intended to do.2

Instead of “Web 3.0”, Berners-Lee sees the future as being a “Semantic Web”.

Web 3.0 and Semantic Web have a few things in common. The goal is to make the web smarter. Right now, computers can search and serve up pages, but to make them truly useful requires input from a human. So, how can computers themselves learn and serve up more meaningful information that requires less human parsing?

Software agents seem to be key. In Berners-Lee’s scenario, the web would be organized into ontologies defined by metadata. Some of the groundwork for this exists with people tagging different web pages and bits of information. Agents would then utilize the metadata to personalize the information. The question is whether or not people will expend the effort for tagging, though.

Another piece to the Web 3.0 puzzle will be a user’s profile. Again, there are some systems that can use input from a user to provide individualized content. However, these current systems are not yet nearly ready for prime time. They don’t truly “learn” yet, and there is a lot of training involved.

What about applications, though? Well, it could be done via mashup, much as some applications do now.3 The API, aggregation, application and client-side services will all need improvements and standardization.4 There have been improvements since Wainwright’s article, but it looks like things need to shake out a lot more yet.

These things do not come without certain implications, though. For example, what if the information in a user’s profile were revealed to people with harmful intent? Would it decrease privacy? Would it make it easier for identity theft? These actually may not be resolved before the technology is in place and in use.

I read an article this weekend on Yahoo! Finance about how some “Jobless make TV ads pitching themselves for work“. The articles starts out focusing on Jayna Dinsmore who had sent resumes, networked and blogged, but still finds herself unemployed after 5 months. No one has been hired as of yet with this experimental TV show, but it is still new.

“Exposure” is what Dinsmore was looking for. Executive producer Ken Masson calls it “cutting edge”, but it isn’t the technology that is cutting edge. No, it is the use of the technology that is cutting edge.

Targeted marketing, whether it be a product you are trying to sell or a job you are trying to land, won’t be replaced any time soon. Technology has made it much more possible to target specific groups of people with specific interests. Sometimes, individuals can be targeted because of past browser history, past purchases, etc. In the end, it is a much more effective means of marketing.

However, there may be times you need the shotgun approach rather a more narrow aim at a target.

Sometimes, good ideas are fresh not because of the technology but because of a new twist on what’s already there. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel every time. Just find a new tire for the wheel you have.

Listen, I’ve had enough! I am a geek! Just because I’ve been a “manager” doesn’t mean I didn’t earn my stripes in the trenches! I’ve done desktop support, and I’ve written software. I’ve even run a BBS. I’ve even coded TCP/IP modules!

I am not going to “process payments” and launder your money from Nigeria. I am not looking to “repackage” your stolen goods from Poland. I’m not giving you my bank account number for “transfers” in order to speculate on currencies (like that’s what you’ll do with the information anyhow). I am not a salesman, and I’m sure as hell not going to sell your bloody insurance! Do your sales people run the networking cable for your office? I didn’t think so!

I’m not interested in MLM. I have no money to buy a franchise, and I certainly don’t want to buy into a financial consultancy!

I’m a geek! Just because I advertise or post my resume online doesn’t mean I’m interested in a lot of crap! Stop it already! If it doesn’t have “computer”, “information”, “project” or “technology” in the description, then send your spam to /dev/null!